Quantitative Distortion Analysis of Flattening Applied to the Scroll from En-Gedi

Abstract

Non-invasive volumetric imaging can now capture the internal structure and detailed evidence of ink-based writing from within the confines of damaged and deteriorated manuscripts that cannot be physically opened. As demonstrated recently on the En-Gedi scroll, our "virtual unwrapping" software pipeline enables the recovery of substantial ink-based text from damaged artifacts at a quality high enough for serious critical textual analysis. However, the quality of the resulting images is defined by the subjective evaluation of scholars, and a choice of specific algorithms and parameters must be available at each stage in the pipeline in order to maximize the output quality.